The expansionist desires of Vladimir Putin and the Russian government do not seem to want to stop at Ukraine. After the threats of the Russian president, this time it was the speaker of parliament who threatened the United States to try to recover Alaska.
Threats from Vladimir Putin and Russian leaders have not been lacking since the start of the war in Ukraine. On July 7, the Russian president once again challenged the United States and Europe to fight them. “The Westerners want to defeat us on the battlefield. What can I say? Let them try,” he said during a meeting with the leaders of the parliament’s groups.
Another threat, this time from the president of the Duma (lower house of the Russian Assembly), Viatcheslav Volodin has been talked about. Close to Vladimir Putin has threatened the United States to recover Alaska.
The wish to reclaim Alaska is not new to Russians, who have hinted at it often over the past decade. In March 2022, Oleg Matveychev, a member of the Duma, had demanded that the United States return “all Russian properties, those of the Russian Empire, of the Soviet Union and of present-day Russia”. In 2014, Vladimir Putin himself had already alluded to it. But then why does this American territory seem to be in Russia’s sights?
A former territory of the Russian Empire
Vladimir Putin misses the time of the Russian Empire. So recovering Alaska would be an exceptional achievement for him. This American territory is located just five kilometers from Russia, at the Bering Strait.
At the end of the XVIIIe century, in 1784, the first permanent Russian colony was established in Alaska, and a few years later (1799), the Russian-American Company was created.
This commercial monopoly will allow the expansion of the Russian Empire in North America. Russia then gradually moved into Alaska with several colonies, but they were purchased by the US government for $7.2 million in March 1867 (about $144 million today).
Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy quipped on Twitter, “Good luck with that! We have hundreds of thousands of armed Alaskan citizens and military who will see things differently.”
A threat which seems very complex to execute by members of the Kremlin but which allows “Moscow to awaken the patriotism of its population” as Carole Grimaud Potter explains to TF1info. A way of showing the people that Russia does not intend to allow itself to be faced with sanctions from the United States and Europe.
A mission: to make Ukraine disappear
The capture of Ukraine is also the symbol of Vladimir Putin’s nostalgia for the past of Russian territory. For him, Ukraine does not deserve to exist and should belong to Russia, as in the XIXe century.
The country has suffered from the violence of the fighting for more than four months and civilians are regular victims. This Sunday, July 10, an apartment building was once again targeted by airstrikes in eastern Ukraine, at least 15 people are believed to have died so far.
Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, accused Moscow of “deliberately, intentionally targeting mere homes, civilian objects, and people.”
